Abstract:
Plants may be grafted in a multitude of ways for many different reasons, but grafting is usually employed for one of the following reasons:

To propagate plants which are difficult to propagate by cuttings;

To join plants, the roots or shoots of each being selected for special purposes such as disease resistance and/ or adaptability to special conditions such as soil or climate;

To invigorate weak plants, or repair damage;

To allow one root system to support more than one cultivar;

To produce clonal material usually on more vigorous rootstocks than itself; and

To eliminate problems of structure, growth, and disease.

Grafting is widely used for the commercial production of fruit trees and a variety of other ornamental nursery lines derived from clonal selection. These include flowering fruit trees, elms, ashes, liquidambar, etc.

Grafting is also widely used to create "special effect" plants that could not otherwise be grown to display their best features. These "special effect" plants include most